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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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the minority in your party in a particular year. Suppose that the man who owns the factory makes the biggest contribution and gets the say.”

He said, “This is the way that works out. You have to wait. You have to be patient, just the way you have to be patient in a family. Sometimes one brother seems to get the most, then you wait long enough and things even themselves out if you handle yourself right. That's the way the party government is developed. I don't mean to say that there might not come a time when an old party would break up completely, but in general we have a two-party system and you've got to have a party that stays put. Everybody who's a Democrat ought to enroll in the Democratic party and stand there ready to be counted.”

I said, “I don't see the sense of that. I want to see whom I'm going to vote for before I enroll.”

He said, “You have to do it first so that you can have something to say inside the party, and second so that there's a kind of promise of a vote. I get nominated. I know I got four hundred thousand votes up to the Bronx line. I know that. I don't have to worry about that. I come up to the Bronx line with four hundred thousand votes. They're mine. They belong to me. They're going to stand by me.





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